Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Water

For a moment the silence was startling. For an hour and a half the hum and whir of the busy engine had filled the boat until it had long since grown unnoticeable. And now to hav...

The fog held close until just before sunset, although there were times when the three on the _Vagabond_ could make out the shore quite distinctly and thereby gained a very fair...

Perhaps it was because Tom had slept undisturbedly through Nelson's prowling that he was the first to awake the next morning. When he opened his eyes the early sunlight was stre...

"I don't know who this wharf belongs to," said Nelson as he passed the bow line up to Dan, "but there isn't any notice to keep away and so we might as well use it." "I think it'...

Breakfast was over and the crew of the _Vagabond_ were gathered around the chart which lay spread open on the cabin roof. It was foggy again this morning, but the sunlight filte...

"I think that the _Henry Nellis_ happened along this morning, saw Spencer Floyd out there in the tender, took him aboard and knocked holes in our boat in the hope of sinking her."

Never was there a brighter, more perfect June day! Low down in the south a few long cloud-streamers floated, but for the rest the heavens were as clear as though the old lady in...

The _Vagabond_ was cutting her way through the sunlit waters at the best pace of which she was capable--"easily twelve miles an hour, I'll bet you," according to Nelson. Bob had...

For a moment there was silence in the cockpit of the _Vagabond_. Nelson and Bob looked serious, Tom somewhat frightened, and Dan as happy as a lark. It was Bob who first broke t...

An hour later the _Vagabond_ was swinging quietly from her anchor cable in the harbor of Provincetown. About her in the darkness the lights of other craft twinkled and the curvi...

It was a strange, uncanny form which stood for a moment in the heavy shadows beside the door ere, with slow and shuffling footsteps, it advanced toward them. Some dark covering...

When Bob awoke the next morning it was to a gray world. The open ports were rimmed with tiny drops of moisture and the mist swirled in like films of smoke. He got out of bed, tr...

Five minutes later, having learned with bewilderment that the repast on the table was luncheon instead of a late breakfast, Tom was seated with a plate before him and doing nobl...

Have you ever, dear Reader, sat down in a chair when it wasn't there? Or skated to skim ice supposing it to be two inches thick? Have you ever stood at the net, with the eyes of...

The _Vagabond_ lay anchored close to shore, her nose pointing upstream and shaded by the drooping branch of a willow tree. Beside her, tugging gently at the painter, was the ten...

"Well, if we knew we wouldn't be standing here answering your idiotic questions," replied Nelson. After which he and Bob, each having sat on Tom, regained some of their equanimity.

They were standing, the four of them--"to say nothing of the dog," which in this case was a wide-awake wire-haired terrier--on the edge of a wharf overlooking a small slip in wh...

Even Barry seemed to appreciate the awkwardness of the situation. He got out of the chair he was occupying, jumped on to the stern seat, put his front paws on the coaming, and l...

Tom stirred uneasily and brushed his nose with his hand. A drop of moisture had formed on it and was tickling him. Dimly aware of a change in conditions since he had fallen asle...

They were very busy that afternoon. Armed with a list of necessary supplies, they stormed one of the big grocery stores, and a smaller but very interesting emporium where everyt...

His first thought was that the boy had sneaked into the cabin during their absence, bent on theft, and that on hearing their return he had attempted to hide. But the other's fir...

"Now what?" asked Dan when the _Vagabond_ had been made fast in her new quarters at the end of a file of disreputable canal boats. "How are we going to get hold of Spencer?"

Inquiry elicited the information that the town proper was a good two miles by road, although it was in plain sight across the harbor. By walking a block they could take a car--i...

There was the boat, there were the oars, there were the fish which he had promised, and, entangled with one of the oars, was the line he had used. But--where was he? Also, why w...

The _Vagabond_ lay peacefully at anchor at the mouth of Hempstead Harbor. It was almost midnight and a ragged-looking moon was tingeing the quiet water with silver light. In the...